Unclenching the Fists

Ada lives in a former mining town in North Ossetia. Her father keeps her at home, takes her phone, will not let her work, and monitors every move. Her younger brother is obsessively attached to her. Her older brother left years ago and thinks, when he returns, that he can change things. Ada loves her family and wants to escape it at the same time; there is no way to do both. Kira Kovalenko tells the coercion not by explaining it but through bodies: who touches whom, who holds whom, and when an embrace becomes an obstacle. The injury in Ada's past is never fully explained. The film was shot in Ossetian. Milana Aguzarova plays Ada in her first film. Kovalenko studied under Alexander Sokurov. The film won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2021. Who it's for: Viewers who like cinema from the Caucasus, narratives of coercion inside a family, and films that work through the body rather than speech. Who it's not for: The narrative deliberately withholds information. The physical closeness in some scenes is also uncomfortably prolonged.